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NZXT Guardian 921 Review

Testing:

I will test the NZXT Guardian 921 by recording hardware temperatures in degrees Celcius at idle and load. They will be provided by the SpeedFan 4.34 Utility, except for the graphics card, which will be reported by ASUS Smart Doctor. I will run Stress Prime 2004 Orthos using small FFTs (Fast Fourier Transform) to load the processor, and ATItool Scan for artifacts function to load the graphics card. By copying the program files folder, I will load the hard drive for a long time. Each temperature, representing the highest core for the processor, is measured thirty minutes after beginning the test, for both idle and load. Keep in mind that all digitally reported temperatures have an uncertainty of one degree celcius, as it is the smallest unit used. Also, all fan speeds will be set at maximum in every test, in order to represent maximum cooling efficiency and to avoid variation. As for the room temperature, it is gathered by the Sentry LX. Finally, the processor voltage is provided by SpeedFan 4.34 and is reported at idle, having a vdroop of 0.03V at load.

The Codegen 4063-CA is a standard case equipped only of a rear 80mm fan exhaust.

The NZXT Guardian did well in these tests. It won most of the tests. It was beaten by the Thermaltake Xaser IV in only two tests, which are the hard drive load and graphics card load temperatures. As for the the Codegen, it was not really in the race. Surprisingly, it won the graphics card idle test, but it's the only thing it can claim. The Guardian 921 crushed it in both hard drive tests, because it has a front intake fan. However, the Xaser IV did a bit better, but I noticed that its fans are spinning faster than the Guardian 921. A good thing about the slowest speed of the Guardian's ones, is that they are a heck of a lot more quiet.

I also tested its temperature reader accuracy. All three probes were indicating 26C at room temperature, but keeping in mind that it does not measure up to 1/10 of a degree, this seems to be accurate.